The Challenges
We face several threats to the quality and survival of human life. These include
climate change & increasingly severe weather events.
loss of biodiversity resulting in destruction of ecosystems and the interconnected web of life on earth.
pandemics
annihilation by nuclear weapons & other weapons of mass destruction.
pollution of essential resources such as water, air and soil.
Seasonal changes take hold in Julaymba 1. With a flick of the tail, Yirrmbal 2 slides away through the gorge. Kabakabada 3 lingers and shuffles as Duluruiji 4 circles to land. Coming to the cool dry now. Herons stalk slow and stealthful, bait-fish surge and coruscate. Bilngkumu 5 bask all along the banks of the great green and brown beguiling river.
At the April FoE FNQ meeting, guest speaker Steven Nowakowski gave a very powerful and confronting talk about the threat that some industrial scale renewables pose to biodiversity. Steven emphasised the need for urgent action to stop burning fossil fuels and to mitigate climate change. However, he added: 'Should we be clearing forests to decarbonise?' (The World Heritage Listed Mount Fox volcanic crater west of Ingham shown in the photo, could soon be surrounded by up to 200 wind turbines. The forests would be carved up with 190km of new haulage roads up to 60m wide.)
Climate change is delivering unprecedented climate patterns across Australia. The use of fossil fuels is now directly proven to be a key driver in climate change and has resulted in a 1.5C temperature rise since the industrial revolution. To keep temperatures below 2C is a herculean task.
The transition to zero emission renewable energy is now finally occurring. This comes with its own challenges. Industrial scale renewable projects are sometimes in the wrong locations.
Since the early 2000s, FoE Australia has raised awareness about the impacts of climate change on the peoples of the Pacific Islands region. Our research, publications and events have highlighted the effects of more frequent and more extreme weather events, sea level rise and ocean warming and acidification - and the threat of displacement and forced migration.
With the influx of so many new people to Kuranda, this month we're revisiting wildlife friendly ways of living.
The Climate Crisis
In some respects, preventing climate breakdown is highly complicated. But in another, it’s really simple. We need to:
'At the UN climate summit in Glasgow last month, governments failed to set the world on a path to reducing emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 in order to stabilise the climate close to 1.5 degrees but did close the gap to that trajectory.' according to Cam Walker of Friends of the Earth (FoE) Australia.'
Congratulations to FoE FNQ member Margie Pestorius who recently won the Local Agent for Peace Award from the Rotary Peace Centre of Queensland University. Here she writes about her peace work and how it relates to environmental protection.
Cause we are the champions of the world.
So here is the rub. The very way that we live has become the thing that threatens to destroy us. To understand and believe the science is to accept that over the last seventy years particularly we have lived well beyond our biological means and consequently our only support system is faltering.
Many of you will have spotted the articles in ABC News and the Guardian about all the frog deaths in the eastern and southern states. This tragedy follows on the heels of the carnage caused by the notorious bushfires of the 2019/2020 summer but the cause is likely to be the opposite situation: bitter cold!